Best HBO Series based on years running...
10. Generation Kill (mini-series), 2008
Highly trained young Marines of the First Reconnaissance Battalion struggle with inadequate supplies, bureaucratic snafus and poor communication as they lead the drive into Baghdad during the first weeks of the war in Iraq, in a seven-part miniseries based on the best-selling nonfiction book by embedded Rolling Stone correspondent Evan Wright.
9. Rome, 2005-2007
Rome is a British-American-Italian historical drama television series created by Bruno Heller, John Milius and William J. MacDonald. The show's two seasons were broadcast on HBO, BBC Two, and RaiDue between 2005 and 2007.
8. John Adams (mini-series), 2008
Adapted from David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, this lavish seven-part miniseries chronicles the life of Founding Father John Adams, starting with the Boston Massacre of 1770 through his years as an ambassador in Europe, then his terms as vice president and president of the United States, up to his death on July 4, 1826.
7. Game of Thrones, 2011-2015
George R.R. Martin's best-selling book series "A Song of Ice and Fire" is brought to the screen as HBO sinks its considerable storytelling teeth into the medieval fantasy epic. It's the depiction of two powerful families -- kings and queens, knights and renegades, liars and honest men -- playing a deadly game for control of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, and to sit atop the Iron Throne. Martin is credited as a co-executive producer and one of the writers for the series, which was filmed in Northern Ireland and Malta.
6. Bored to Death, 2009-2011
This offbeat comedy series stars Jason Schwartzman as young writer Jonathan Ames, who turns his fantasies culled from reading suspense novels into a moonlighting stint as a private detective in Brooklyn, N.Y. As he begins working cases, though, Jonathan finds his crumbling personal life getting in the way of his clients' expectations, not to mention his needy boss, magazine editor George Christopher, interfering with his new career. His best friend, struggling graphic artist Ray, offers advice and a shoulder to lean on. Author Jonathan Ames created the series.
5. Deadwood, 2004-2006
"Deadwood" is set in a mining town that was not part of any U.S. state or territory in the post-Civil War years, and thus was literally lawless. Deadwood attracts people looking to get rich after a huge gold strike, as well as those looking to capitalize on the lack of organized law in the town, built on land stolen from the Sioux.
4. Boardwalk Empire, 2009-2014
Atlantic City at the dawn of Prohibition is a place where the rules don't apply. And the man who runs things -- legally and otherwise -- is the town's treasurer, Enoch "Nucky" Thompson, who is equal parts politician and gangster. Side by side with his brother Elias, Atlantic City's sheriff, and a crew of ward bosses and local tough guys, Nucky gains a reputation as the man to see for illegal alcohol. He does business with all the top gangsters -- Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, "Big Jim" Colosimo -- and he does it well ... until a former protégé takes matters into his own hands, setting the Feds on Nucky's tail.
3. The Sopranos, 1999-2007
Tony Soprano juggles the problems of his fractious family with those of a "Family" of a different sort - the mob. He sees a therapist to deal with his professional and personal problems, which bring on panic attacks. He deals with personal and professional power struggles, affairs, violence, the threat of exposure and betrayal, and a whole bunch of people being whacked.
2. The Wire, 2002-2008
This series looks at the narcotics scene in Baltimore through the eyes of law enforcers as well as the drug dealers and users. Other facets of the city that are explored in the series are the government and bureaucracy, schools and the news media. The show was created by former police reporter David Simon, who also wrote many of the episodes.
1. True Detective, 2014-present
A 1995 murder case is revisited 17 years later, calling into question the supposed solving of the crime by Louisiana State Police Detectives Rust Cohle and Martin Hart, and reopening old wounds related to the detectives' volatile partnership and personal lives. The inquiry unfolds in the present day through separate interrogations of the now former co-workers, who narrate the story of both the investigation and their lives, including why Cohle left Louisiana's Criminal Investigation Division in 2002. As the timeline weaves between 1995 and 2012, Cohle and Hart are brought back to a world both thought they had left behind.
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